Church of the Three Patrons, Rathgar – Meditation and Caring for the Earth

Two initiatives have sprung up in Church of the Three Patrons, Rathgar over the last two years. Firstly parishioners started a Lenten meditation initiative in association with all the churches in their area called, “Silence in the Parish: A MeditativePilgrimage for Peace”. Each morning during Lent about 20 people gather for silent meditation from 7.45-8.15 am. In a small and quiet way they try to create a pool of grace before heading off to work.

The other initiative is a reading group that studied Laudato Si and who then set about trying to put what they had read into action. The Laudato Si group invited Fr Sean McDonagh to talk to them last October and during his talk he commented that ‘relationship’ in Christianity has largely been understood as relationship with God and relationship with our fellow human beings, but our understanding of our relationship with creation is less understood. In addition people have a tendency to understand humans having ‘dominion’ over creation in terms of dominance.

Arising out of that the parish meditation group decided to see if their experience of meditation could offer something to their common endeavour and so they invited Fr Donagh O’Shea OP to give a talk entitled ‘Meditation and Caring for the Earth’ on the 20th of February last.

Fr Donagh identified three ways in which ’being’ can help us in our ‘doing.’ Firstly, over time meditation increases the sense of the sacred. That becomes particularly evident in how we experience nature. Secondly, meditation increases our awareness so we actually become aware of ways in which we can protect and care for our environment. Thirdly, one of the fruits of meditation is that it helps us let go of our ego so our need for domination weakens over time. Gradually it becomes more a case of ‘thy will be done’ rather than ‘my will be done’.

About 40 people attended and it has helped widen interest in both of these new ministries.